Polarities in Health, Illness and Therapy

On-line since: 30th March, 1988

A Lecture By
Rudolf Steiner
Pennmenmawr, August 28, 1923
GA 319

This is a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Pennmenmawr, August 28, 1923.
It was translated from the original German by G.F. Karnow, M.D.;
Martha Bosch edited it. In the German it appears in
Anthroposophische Menschenerkenntnis und Medizin,
Bibliogr.-Nr.319, published by the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung,
Dornach, Switzerland, 1971.

Polarities in Health, Illness and Therapy

Since I was asked to speak about the therapeutic principles which have
developed out of the anthroposophical view of the world, I will gladly
meet this request. However, it is difficult to be brief, especially about this
kind of subject matter which is so extraordinarily extensive. In one brief
lecture, which can only be aphoristic, one can hardly develop correct
ideas of what is important. In addition, certain deliberations must be
undertaken in such an attempt which are quite removed from what people
generally think about. Nevertheless, this evening I will attempt to present
the relevant issues in as generally comprehensive a manner as possible.

The fact that within our anthroposophical movement there is also a
medical-therapeutic endeavor is certainly not based upon our desire as
anthroposophists to participate in everything and to stick our noses, so to
speak, into everything. That is absolutely not the case; but as the
anthroposophical movement sought to make its way through the world,
physicians too found their way to this movement. They are seriously
striving physicians; and a relatively large number of such physicians had
come to a more or less clear awareness of how uncertain, how vacillating
the views of contemporary, official medicine actually are, of how in
many cases the foundations for the actual comprehension of processes of
illness and healing are lacking. These foundations are lacking in official
medicine because today the claims for scientific validity are actually
based exclusively upon generally accepted natural science. This natural
science in turn believes itself to be moving with certainty only with what
it can determine in a mechanical, physical or chemical manner from outer
nature. It then applies the discoveries made through physics and
chemistry about outer natural processes in order to come to an
understanding of the human being. But even if there is a kind of
concentration, a microcosmic concentration of all world processes within
the human being, nevertheless, the outer physical and chemical processes
never proceed within the human organism in the same form in which they
proceed outside in nature. Man takes the substances of the earth into
himself, substances which are not merely passive, but which are actually
always permeated by nature processes. A substance only appears outwardly
as if it were resting within itself. In reality, everything lives and weaves
in the substance. Thus man also takes into his organism these processes,
this living and weaving activity, proceeding chemically and physically
in nature; but he transforms it immediately in his organism —
he makes it into something different.

This something different, which develops out of the nature processes in
the human organism, can only be understood if one attains a
comprehensive observation of the human being based on reality. But
contemporary natural science actually excludes from its realm what
proceeds in the human being as intrinsically human. Even, for example,
what proceeds as intrinsically human in the physical body is attributed
exclusively to physical and chemical processes; for in the physical body
of man nothing takes place which is not at the same time subject to the
influences of etheric processes, of astral processes, of ego processes. But
as natural science totally ignores these ego processes, these astral
processes, this etheric living and weaving, it actually does not at all
approach the human being. Therefore this natural science can not really
look into the inner activities of the human being in order to comprehend
how the outer chemical and physical processes continue to work in him:
how they continue to work when he is healthy, and how they continue to
work when he is diseased.

How shall it then be possible to properly judge the effects of
medicaments, of a remedy, if one has not acquired an understanding for
how some substance of nature which we introduce into the human
organism, or with which we treat the human organism, continues to work
in that organism.

It could indeed be said that the greatest progress imaginable in medicine
in more recent times has actually only been made in the area of surgery
where one is dealing with external mechanical manipulations, as it were. In
contrast, in the area of actual therapy, there reigns great confusion —
(this is not my judgment, but the judgment of those physicians who have
become conscious of all this). The reason for this confusion is that the
connection between any object of nature and its effect upon illness
cannot be understood if, by virtue of a specific point of view which one
has about natural science, one actually excludes the human being from
scientific considerations.

Since anthroposophy strives to know the human being comprehensively
— insofar as he is a super-sensible as well as a material being
— it is also possible that anthroposophy can yield knowledge
concerning the treatment of illnesses with various natural substances.

Fundamentally speaking, we are already confronting today a kind of
boundary in medicine if we ask only for the actual nature of illness. What
is illness? This question cannot be answered out of contemporary
scientific knowledge. For, what, according to these natural scientific
views, are all the processes which proceed in the healthy human being?
From the head to the tip of the toes these are processes of nature. But then
what are the processes which take place during illness in the liver, kidney,
head, heart, wherever? What kind of processes are these? These are also
natural processes! All healthy processes are processes of nature; all
processes of illness are also processes of nature. Why then is the human
being healthy with one sort of natural process and ill with the other sort
of natural process?

It is not a matter of speaking in vague generalities: well, yes the healthy
processes of nature are normal, but the sick processes of nature are not.
One can get the impression that, if one doesn't know anything, there
arises “at the proper time,” a word, a label for our ignorance.

What is actually going on when customary natural science is applied in
approaching the human being? The predominant practice is not to look at
the living being, but at the corpse; here and there a piece of the organism
is sampled and then various abstractions are made about what kind of
healthy or sick natural processes proceeded within it. Thus it actually
doesn't matter whether one takes some kind of tissue out of the head, out
of the liver, out of the big toe, or the like. Everything is finally reduced
to the cell. Gradually histology, the study of tissues and cells, has
actually become the most highly developed teaching of the human being. Of
course, if one goes into the smallest parts and ignores all other forces, all
other relationships, then, as at night all cows are grey, all organs are the
same. The result is a benighted “grey cow science,” not a true
science which acquaints itself with the uniqueness of the separate organs
in man.

What must provide the basis there I actually dared to express only a few
years ago. Although it is generally imagined that it is easy for spiritual
science to come to its results, this matter has occupied me for more than
thirty years. It is thought that one only needs to look into the spiritual
world to find out everything, while it is difficult if one has to work in
laboratories or in a clinic — there one must really struggle. In
spiritual science it is only a matter of looking into the world of the spirit
and then one finds out everything. It really isn't that simple. Thorough and
responsible spiritual investigation demands more effort and above all more
responsibility than the manipulations in the laboratory or in the clinic or
observatories. And so it is that the first conception of what I will now
briefly indicate in principle stood before me approximately thirty-five
years ago. I was only able to speak about it a few years ago after
everything was worked through and, above all, verified completely on the
findings of the entire contemporary official natural science. It was under
the influence of these principles of the membering of the human being
that what I just told you about developed — this medical-therapeutic
endeavor within our anthroposophical movement.

Even if we confront the human being as a solely physical being, we must
definitely distinguish three members which differ one from another.
These three different members can be labeled in the most varied ways,
but we can best approach them if we characterize them by saying that one
system of the physical being is the nerve-sense system which is primarily
localized in the head. The second system is the rhythmic system, which
encompasses respiration, blood circulation, the rhythmic activities of the
digestive system, and so forth. The third system is represented in the
interconnection between the movement system, the system of the limbs,
and the actual metabolic system, This interconnection becomes
immediately evident to you if you think of the fact that the metabolism is
enhanced especially through the movement of the limbs and that
inwardly the limbs are organically connected with the metabolic organs.
That is directly evident also in anatomy. Just look at how the legs are
continued inwardly into the metabolic organs and, similarly, how the
arms are continued inwardly. Thus we can now distinguish the nerve-sense
system, located primarily in the head; the rhythmic system, located
primarily in the chest; and the metabolic limb system, located primarily
in the limbs and the attached metabolic organs.

This membering, however, may not be done as a professor once did who
wanted to ridicule the anthroposophical movement. He did not attempt to
penetrate into what is actually meant with this membering. He said: these
anthroposophists maintain that man consists of three systems: a head, a
rump consisting of chest and abdomen, and limbs. Of course, in this
manner it is easy to ridicule the matter.

What matters is not that the nerve-sense system is only in the head. It is
primarily in the head, but it extends over the entire organism. The head
organization spreads out through the entire organism. Similarly, the
rhythmic system extends upwards and downwards through the entire
organism. Spatially speaking the human being is entirely metabolic-limb
system. If you move the eyes, the eyes are limbs. So these systems are
not spatially next to one another; instead they interpenetrate one another.
They totally interpenetrate and one must accustom oneself a little to an
exact thinking if one wants to evaluate this membering of the human
being in the right way.

Now both these systems, the first and the third, the nerve-sense system
and the metabolic-limb system, are placed polarically opposite each
other. What the one creates destroys the other. What destroys the other is
created by the one. They thus work in completely opposite ways. And the
middle system, the rhythmic system, establishes the connection between
the two. There is a kind of vacillation, oscillation, between them, so that
a harmony can always exist between the destruction of the one system and
the construction of the other system. If, for example, we look at the
metabolic system, we recognize that it naturally works with its greatest
intensity in the lower body of the human being; but that which goes on
within the human abdomen, or the lower body, must call forth the polar
opposite activity in the head, in the nerve-sense system, when the person
is healthy.

Imagine now that the activity actually inherent in the human digestive
system intensifies so much that it extends right up to the nerve-sense
system, so that the activity which should actually remain in the
metabolic-limb system reaches over to the nerve-sense system. Then you
have a natural process, so to speak, but you can see immediately how that
natural process becomes an abnormal one. It should remain in the
metabolic system, but breaks through, so to speak, upwards into the
nerve-sense system.

That results then in the various forms of the illness treated by medicine
today as insignificant, but not treated in that way by a large part of
humanity because these various forms of illness are known everywhere.
What develops is known as the various forms of migraine. In order to
understand migraine in its various forms we must comprehend this
process which ought only to take place in the metabolic system but which
breaks through to the nerve-sense system so that the nerves and senses
are so affected that the metabolism shoots into them instead of remaining
in its own place.

The reverse can also take place. The process which ought to be most
intensive in the nerve-sense system, and which is completely opposite to
the metabolic process, can in a certain sense also break through to the
metabolic system. Consequently an enhanced nerve-sense process takes
place in the metabolic system where normally a merely subordinated
nerve-sense process should be active. Thus what belongs to the head, as it
were, breaks through into the lower body. If this happens then the
dangerous illness develops which is known as
typhoid fever.

Thus we can see how a fundamental understanding of this three-fold
human being makes it possible for us to understand how a process of
illness develops out of a healthy process. If our head, with its nerve-sense
system, were not organized as it is, then we could never have typhoid
fever. If our lower body were not organized as it is, we could never have
migraine. The head activity should remain in the head, the lower body
activity in the lower body. If they break through then such forms of
illness develop.

And just as we can point to two especially characteristic forms of illness,
so can we point to other forms of illness which always develop when an
activity which belongs to one organ system asserts itself in another place,
in another organ system.

If one proceeds only anatomically one merely observes the status of the
smallest parts in the tissues of the organism. But one does not see the
working of polar opposite activities. When studying the nerve cell you
can only study that its organization is opposite to that of the liver cell,
for example. If, however, you were able to look into the totality of the
organism in such a way that it appears to you in its three-foldness, then
you will also notice how the nerve cell is a cell which continually tends to
dissolve, which continually tends to be broken down if it is healthy: and
how a liver cell is something which continually tends to be built up if it is
healthy. Those are polar activities. They work in the right way upon one
another if they are appropriately distributed in the organism; they work
incorrectly within one another if they penetrate into one another.

The rhythmic system is in the middle and always strives to create the
balance between the two opposed polar activities of the nerve-sense
system and the metabolic-limb system.

I would now like to select a special example to let you have insight into
how one can find the relationship of a remedy which has been taken from
nature with its forces to the health-giving and illness-generating forces
active within man.

Let us direct our gaze to an ore which can be found in nature, so-called
antimony. As soon as we look at it externally we see that it has an
extraordinarily interesting property. Its form in nature is such that certain
rods develop — stem-like, lance-like structures which lie next to one
another — so that if we were to draw the ore schematically we could
draw the following:

It grows almost like a mineral moss or a mineral lichen. One can see that
this mineral wants to order itself into threads. One can see this even more
clearly if we subject it to a certain physical-chemical process. Then the
thread-like crystals become even thinner. It orders itself into clusters of
very fine threads. Especially important, however, is what occurs when
this antimony is subjected to a certain kind of combustion process. You
get a white smoke which can then condense on the walls and becomes
mirror-like. That is called the antimony mirror. It is hardly respected at
all today but in older medicine it was widely used. This antimony mirror,
which first arises out of the combustion process and condenses on the
walls so that it shines like a mirror is something exceptionally important.

In addition there is another property. I will emphasize only this: if
antimony is subjected to certain electrolytic processes and it is brought to
the so-called electrolytic cathode, then it is only necessary (after the
antimony was subjected to the electrolytic process on the cathode), to
exert a slight action on it and a small antimony explosion will occur. In
brief, this antimony has the most interesting properties.

If antimony is introduced into the human organism in a moderate dose
one can study various processes which show how in fact the same forces
which behave as I have just described experience a kind of continuation
in the human organism and how they take on all kinds of forms of forces
and effects within it.

I can naturally not explain all the details and proofs to you: I only want
to briefly sketch for you what is inherent in these forms of activity. These
processes which arise in the human organism occur especially strongly
wherever blood coagulates. Therefore they strengthen or enhance the
coagulation of blood. However, if we use those methods of study which
are consistent with an understanding of the threefold human organism,
we are permitted to gradually look into the human being and gain
knowledge of how the separate systems behave in the different organs. If
we look into the human organism in this way, we find that what lives in
antimony lives not only outside in the mineral antimony, but also is
active as a force-system in the human organism. This force system is
always present in the healthy human organism. In the sick human
organism it takes on forms of the kind which I have just explained to you.

This antimony process existing in the human organism is opposed in a
polar way to another process. It is opposed to that process which arises
where the plastically active forces, for example, the cell-forming forces
occur. These are the forces which round out the cells, which form the
cellular substance of the human organism. I would like to call these
forces, because they are primarily contained in protein substance, the
albuminizing forces. Thus we have in the human organism the forces
which we find outside in human nature in antimony if we subject
antimony, for example, to combustion, and bring about an antimony
mirror. In addition we also have the opposing forces active, the
albuminizing forces, which immobilize, which take away the
antimonizing forces.

These two force systems, albuminizing and antimonizing, work against
one another in such a way that they must be in a certain state of
equilibrium in the human organism. One must now recognize that the
process which I have described to you before in principle, and which lies
at the basis of abdominal typhus, is essentially based on a disturbance of
the balance between these two force systems.

In order to look properly into the human organism one must be able to
take recourse to that which I have described to you from the most varied
— although not medical — points of view in these morning lectures.

In them we have seen how man has not merely his physical body, but also
an etheric body — a body of formative forces, an astral and an ego
organization. And just yesterday I was able to explain to you how there is
an intimate connection on the one hand between the physical body and
the formative force body, and on the other, between the ego and the astral
body. There is a looser connection between the astral body and the
formative force body, for they separate every night.

This interconnection, which consists of a working into one another of the
forces of the astral and etheric bodies, is radically disturbed in typhoid
fever. In this illness the astral body becomes weak and is unable to work
with a corresponding intensity into the physical body because it works
for itself thereby bringing about that excess which presses downward, so
to speak, the nerve-sense organization, which is primarily subject to the
astral body. Instead of transforming itself into metabolic activity, it
remains active as astral activity. The astral body works for itself. It does
not work properly into the etheric body. The consequences are the
symptoms of illness which give us the symptomatology of typhus.

Now that which occurs as antimony is active in such a way that antimony
denies its mineral nature. It gets crystalline threads, so that even the
antimony mirror, wherever it deposits, appears like ice-flowers in the
window, thereby showing the inner force of crystallization as in nature.
This force of crystallization, which becomes active in antimony, if it is
properly incorporated into a remedy and introduced into the organism,
works in such a way that it supports this organism enabling it to insert its
astral body with its forces into the etheric body in the right way, so that it
can bring these bodies again into the right connection.

With antimony prepared in a proper way into a remedy we support that
process which opposes the typhus process. And just with this antimony
remedy, to which other substances are added, one can battle against the
illness by stimulating and supporting processes in the organism so that it
unfolds its own, I would like to say, antimonizing force which has as its
goal to call forth the proper rhythm in the working together of astral body
and etheric body. Other substances must be mixed in to establish a proper
connection to the organism depending on whether an illness takes one or
another course.

Thus an anthroposophical consideration leads to the recognition of a
relationship between what is active in the objects of nature, as I have
shown you with the example of antimony, and that which is active within
the human organism. You will be able to follow up this albuminizing, this
plastically rounding force, and the other force which works linearly right
into the germ cell.

Whoever has truly gained knowledge in this field — however
uncomfortable it may be for him to say so, because he knows he will call
forth hate and antipathy in certain people — and who thus looks into the
operation of the human organism will consider the otherwise amazing
and wonderful microscopic studies about the germ cell, exceptionally
dilettantish. There people look externally at the egg cell, observe the
development of the so-called centrosomes — you can read about that in
any textbook about embryology, — without knowing how these
albuminizing forces, which also rule throughout the entire human
organism, are opposed, polarically opposed, to the antimonizing forces.
The rounding of the egg cell as such is brought about by the albuminizing
forces; the centrosomes, after fertilization, are called forth by the
antimonizing forces.

That, however, goes on in the entire human body; and by preparing
remedies in the right way, and knowing through the diagnosis where one
must support the human organism, one introduces into this organism the
forces which can work against a process of illness.

By bringing anthroposophical points of view into medicine a connection
is established between the macrocosm and the human being. Naturally I
would have to say much more about antimony if I wanted to scientifically
explain it in detail, but I only want to point out general principles here.
In addition I wanted to tell you about the processes which antimony is able
to bring forth out of itself, which it has in itself, depending on how one
treats it.

I could also show you now, as an example, the entire behavior within
nature and its processes for that which we call quartz, or silicic
acid. It is one of the constituents of granite. It is transparently
crystalline and so hard that you can't score it with a knife at all. If we
treat this substance in the proper way and administer it to the human
organism — in the proper doses that are determined from the diagnosis
— then it gains the
characteristic of being able to support that which is to be active in the
nerve-sense system, which the organism through the nerve-sense system
is to bring forth as the intrinsic forces of this system. So what, by rights,
the senses actually should do is supported by the remedy, which is
prepared in the right way from quartz, or silica and administered in the
proper doses. It is necessary then, depending upon the accompanying
symptoms, to add still other substances, but here it is primarily a matter
of the effect of that which lies in the silicic acid formation process. Thus
if one brings this silicic acid formation process into the human organism,
then a weak activity in the nerve-sense system is supported so that it then
works with the proper strength. Now if this nerve-sense activity becomes
too weak, then the digestive activity is able to penetrate through to the
head and the migraine-like symptoms develop.

If one then supports the nerve-sense activity in the right way with a
remedy which is produced in the proper manner out of silicic acid, the
nerve-sense system becomes so strong in the person suffering from
migraine that it can again press back the digestive process which broke
through.

Naturally I am characterizing these matters somewhat crudely, but you
will see what is significant here. What matters is to really be able to see
through the healthy or ill human organism, not merely in accordance with
its cellular composition but according the forces active in it, whether they
work co-operatively, rhythmically or in opposition. Then one can look in
nature for what in the human organism can fight against this or that
process of illness.

Thus one can find, for example, how the process which is contained in
phosphorus is in outer nature a process which, if introduced into the
human organism, works in a supportive way upon a certain kind of inner
disability of the human organism; namely, when the human organism
becomes incapable of allowing to act in the right way certain forces,
which should always work in the healthy organism. This is when a person
has too little strength and cannot let certain forces be active within him
which are a kind of organic combustion process which is always present
in the transformation of substances in the human organism. This takes
place in every movement, in all that man does, and also in what is active
within organic combustion processes. Now the human organism can
become too weak to regulate these organic combustion processes in the
proper way, for they must be inhibited in a certain manner. If they are
insufficiently inhibited, they develop an excessive activity. The organic
combustion processes in themselves actually always have an
immeasurable, unlimited intensity. If that were not so, an excessive
fatigue would arise immediately, or one would be unable to keep moving.
However, the organism must also continuously have the possibility of
inhibiting the boundless intensity of the organic combustion processes.

If now these inhibiting forces are neither in an organ system nor in the
entire organism, if the organism has become too weak to inhibit its
organic combustion processes in the proper way, then there develops
something which manifests itself as tuberculosis in the most various
forms. The suitable nutrient soil for the bacilli is created through this
organic loss of strength, through the inability of the organism to inhibit
the combustion processes.

Nothing will here be said against the bacterial theory which to a certain
extent is very useful. In the various ways by which bacilli arise here or
there one can naturally find out many things; for purposes of diagnoses
one can generally get a lot of information. In no way do I want to say
anything against official medicine, except that it needs to be augmented and
developed further when it arrives at certain boundaries — and it can be
developed further when the points of view of anthroposophy can be
applied to it.

If phosphorus is then introduced into the human organism, then these
capacities of containing the organic combustion process are supported.
But one must see to it that this containment can emanate from the various
organ systems. Let us begin by looking at the system which primarily
works in the bones. There the activity of phosphorus in the human
organism must be supported in that one directs it towards the bones. That
can happen when one combines the remedy phosphorus — in a way which
becomes clear through a more exacting study of the matter — with
calcium or a calcium salt. When dealing with tuberculosis of
the small intestine one will mix some kind of copper compounds in the
right dosage with the phosphorus. When dealing with a pulmonary tuberculosis,
one will add iron to the phosphorus. But still other additions
come under consideration since pulmonary tuberculosis is an
exceedingly complicated disease. Thus you see that the possibility of a
true therapy is based on how the chemical and physical processes
continue to work on in the human organism.

Official medicine often starts out from the opinion that the working of the
antimony forces outside in nature is the same as it is in the human
organism, but that is not the case. One must be clear about how these
processes work on in the human organism, and this can be seen if one
applies actual anthroposophical insights to the experiments which must
be done.

We have seen how antimony establishes the rhythm between the astral
body and the etheric body. Now we can see how the forces which are
active in quartz are especially suitable to reestablishing the proper
relationship, when it has been disturbed, between the ego and the astral
body, in order thereby to work in a healing way upon the nerve-sense
system. We can also see how calcium — especially that calcium which is
obtained from the calcium excretions of animals — provides remedies
which establish the proper relationship between the body of formative
forces, the etheric body and the physical body.

Thus one can say that a correct view of the human being leads to the use
of calcium or something similar, namely, what is secreted from the animal
organism, — oyster shells, for example — in order to establish
the proper relationship between the etheric body and the physical body,
which, if out of balance, always expresses itself in physical processes of
illness. That is what one must reflect upon when preparing remedies from
such calcareous or similar excretions.

When dealing with an arhythmic working together of the body of
formative forces and the astral body, one must look for what is present in
antimony, and also in numerous other metals. If one wants to use
remedies prepared from plants, one must also look especially into those
constituents which are contained in the middle parts of the plants, those
which are particularly present in the leaves and stem, whereas those
forces which correspond to the phosphorus process are contained
primarily in the blossom organs of the plants. Those processes which
correspond to the silicic acid process are contained in the root organs of
the plant. Thus one finds relationships between the forces which are in
the various parts of the plant and the human organism. The root forces
have a definite relationship and connection to the human head and to the
nerve-sense system; the leaves and the stem organs have a specific
connection to the rhythmic system; the blossom organs have a special
connection to the metabolic system.

If one therefore wants to give assistance in a simple way to the digestive,
metabolic system, that can often successfully be done — after having
made the diagnosis in the correct way — by choosing certain blossoms of
which one makes a tea. In this way one can assist the digestive organs. If
one wants to gain a remedy which works especially upon the nerve-sense
processes, upon the head organization, one would have to extract the salts
from the roots by a special extraction process.

Thus it is necessary to penetrate into nature on the one hand and into the
human organism on the other. Then it is possible to really find the
remedies in nature so that one can see how the two are connected.
Otherwise one does things by trial and error in order to find out how
something works only to discover that it is not valid, or to write up a
number of cases where 90% or 70% showed a favorable result, but 40%
were unsuccessful. Then the matter is statistically treated, and depending
on what result the statistics yielded, a determination is made whether or
not a particular remedy should be used.

Because of the brief time available I can only speak about these matters
aphoristically in order to indicate how in fact, without succumbing to
dilettantism or medical sectarianism, one can proceed strictly in
accordance with science in approaching illness processes through
remedies which come out of a full perception of man.

Just as the correct knowledge of natural substances and natural processes
is important in order to create a remedy, so it is equally important to
know the specific manner of application of the remedy.

One can either work upon the nerve-sense system in bringing about, in
the right manner, the process of healing, or one can work on the rhythmic
system, or on the metabolic-limb system. In order to work on these
different systems it is essential to know how the method of treatment
must be initiated, for almost every remedy can be used in three different
ways. To begin with it can be taken orally. This makes it possible for a
person to take up the remedy through the metabolic system, which then
in turn works upon the other systems. Some remedies are meant to be
used in just this way.

There are also, however, remedies which can be used in a way which
allows them to work directly on the rhythmic system. (In this connection
antimony will provide a good example for finding the proper method of
treatment.) This is where administration by injection must be introduced.
Injecting the remedy intravenously or sub-cutaneously is the mode of
administration which can best work upon the rhythmic processes in man.

In those remedies used in ointments, or in baths, or even wherever there
is a question of treating the human organism in an external, mechanical
way, for example in massage, then one can count upon this method of
treatment as working primarily upon the nerve-sense system.

One can thus work through every organ system in the most varied ways
in an effort at working towards a healing process. Let us assume we have
silica, or quartz. It makes quite a difference whether we prepare this
remedy to be taken by mouth or to be injected. If we count upon the fact
that it will be taken by mouth then we will be preparing it to work
through the digestive system, and the digestive system in turn can send
forces into the nerve-sense system. We are then introducing the quartz
processes by detour through the digestive system. If, however, we see
that more quartz processes need to be transmitted to the nerve-sense
system by introducing them via the rhythmic system, via the blood and
breath, then we inject the remedy and thereby attempt to heal by way of
the rhythmic system.

If we want to work therapeutically by way of the digestive organs with
aromatic ether substances contained in the blossom of the plant, then we
will prepare a tea and introduce it into the gastro-intestinal tract by
having the patient drink it. If we want to bring etheric oils which, through
their aromatic properties, work directly upon the nerve-sense system —
or working first upon the nerve-sense system and then into the rhythmic
system — then we could make some kind of bath to which we add the
juices of the blossoms. In this manner we work upon the nerve-sense
system.

Thus we see how the healing effect of the different substances brought
into a relationship to man depends on the various methods of application
and treatment. This will become transparently clear if anthroposophical
knowledge is more and more applied to bringing about a connection
between nature processes and the human being. It can then become
evident through anthroposophy which remedies one needs to apply and
how one needs to apply them.

In this way something can be brought about in the laboratories within our
clinical-therapeutic institutes and other endeavors in which physicians
are involved making it possible that on the one hand, remedies and
therapeutic methods can be tried out, and on the other hand, the remedies
themselves can be prepared. We have such clinical institutes as well as
chemical-pharmaceutical laboratories in Arlesheim, near Dornach, as
well as in Stuttgart.

I must point here especially to the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute in
Arlesheim (now the Ita Wegman Klinik) which is under the exceptional
direction of Frau Dr. Ita Wegman, who unfolds an activity full of blessing
for that institute because she has that which I would like to call “the
courage to heal.” It is evident that this courage to heal is necessary,
especially if you look on the one hand into the complexity of natural
processes out of which healing processes must be drawn forth, and on the
other hand into the immense complexity of processes of illness and health
in man. — If a physician confronts this vast field even if he only
has a certain number of patients, then she or he is required to have
courage in order to heal.

Attached to this Arlesheim Institute is the International Pharmaceutical
Laboratory (now the Weleda) in which remedies are produced. They can
be used today in the entire world. The pharmacy produces the remedies
and it is up to others to find the ways and means to make use of them.
That is the essential point. People must find the right ways and means to
arrive at the right remedies without being dilettantes. Then contemporary
science will not be negated; rather, it will be taken further, extended.

If this knowledge becomes widely known, the success of such an
endeavor as the International Pharmaceutical Laboratory in Arlesheim
will not be a problem. But it is difficult in the face of the prevalent,
purely materialistic direction of medicine to bring into the world effective
therapeutics which are based upon a full knowledge of man. To bring
about a change one would have to count upon the insight of every person
who has a heartfelt interest in the health of his fellow man.

In pointing to that which can be achieved through natural remedies and
their appropriate application, I certainly do not want to exclude what can
be achieved by more soul-spiritual processes of healing. In this realm one
can make especially fruitful observations. If we now carry
hygienic-therapeutic considerations — as always must be the case in a
proper pedagogy — into the school, one can see how the manner in which
one works upon the children in a soul-spiritual manner in instruction can have
an effect on the health and illness of a person — if not immediately,
then certainly in the course of life. When I give pedagogical lectures I
naturally speak about these matters in greater detail. I will mention only
one example: the teacher can proceed properly in relation to the memory
of the child only if he expects neither too much nor too little. If he
proceeds improperly, if he places too many demands on the memory in
the eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh years of life, then he does not have
the proper pedagogical tact. What the soul must go through in an
excessive activity of memory, or artificially nurtured activity of memory,
will live itself out later in life as all kinds of physical illnesses. It is
possible to establish a connection between diabetes and erroneous
methods in education in relationship to memory. So too can the use of
memory in education to the opposite extreme also have unfavorable
effects upon a child.

I can mention this only in principle, but one can see from it not only how
the natural remedies work in health and illness, but also how the special
manner in which the soul itself works can be significant to health and
illness.

Starting from there one can also find one's way to those methods
whereby we attempt, through purely soul-spiritual influences, from person
to person, — which I naturally cannot describe in detail any more
today — to bring about processes leading to healing. Especially in this
realm, however, it is very easy to get into dilettantism. One can, for
example, harbor the belief that the so-called mental illnesses can be most
easily healed through spiritual influences (for example by discussion).
However, mental illnesses especially distinguish themselves by the fact
that one can hardly approach the ill person with rational discussion. As a
matter of fact it is just that impossibility of rational exchange which
closes off the soul against outer influences in the so-called mentally ill.
But one will find over and again that especially in so-called mental illness
— which actually has been, as such, incorrectly named — physical
processes of illness are present in a hidden way somewhere. Before one
wants to meddle in a dilettantish way with mental illness, one ought
actually, with the proper diagnosis, to determine which physical organ is
involved in the illness. Only then will one be working beneficially
through a corresponding healing of the physical organism.

One can help physical illnesses much sooner through all kinds of
soul-spiritual (mental-psychological) influences, This is being done today but
generally in a dilettantish way. I will not go into that now, Especially in
physical illness much benefit will come in this way and the outer process
which is brought about through remedies and the like will be supported in
different ways.

I can only indicate this, Those methods which are based on the
foundation of anthroposophy certainly do not exclude therapeutic
soul-spiritual influences; rather, they include them. You have evidence of
this in the Clinical Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim-Dornach. Besides
the physical-therapeutic methods you also find curative eurythmy.

This curative eurythmy consists in taking what you have seen here as
artistic eurythmy and transforming it into health-giving movements for
the person moving them, The vowel aspect is transformed so that the
person makes healthy movements which are drawn out of eurythmy and
are applied specifically in support of those forces which earlier I have
called the albuminizing forces in man, while the consonant forces in
many ways support the antimonizing forces, Thus it is possible through
the working together of consonant and vowel eurythmy to bring about a
balance between these two kinds of forces, And it can show there, if
things are done properly, not in a dilettantish manner, how other healing
processes, also in chronic illnesses, can be immensely supported through
this curative eurythmy.

This curative eurythmy is actually based upon the fact that soul-spiritual
processes are awakened through that which man does with his limbs. If
one knows which movements want to come directly forth out of the
healthy human organism, then one can also find the corresponding
movements which will work in a healing way if one works back from the
limbs, i.e. from the human movement, upon the processes of the inner
organs.

In the Clinical Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim the possibility exists to
look at this curative eurythmy and to see how it, as a therapy, can be a
specialized branch within the entire therapeutic process, a therapy which
can be discovered out of true anthroposophical knowledge of man. It
would naturally be going too far to discuss details in this area. The
principles are actually given in what I have presented to you.

Thus it has happened that in the most varied ways we have had to
develop this therapeutic endeavor within the anthroposophical movement
because those involved in therapy have approached us. It has been a
demand arising from the condition of the times. It was so-to-speak
demanded by contemporary civilization. Anthroposophy has only given
the answers to questions which were posed to it.

I really could only present the principles aphoristically to you today.
More has not been possible during the available time. If I wanted to
present matters in their totality, then I would have to do what I refused to
do two days ago during the lecture on eurythmy. I would have to invite
you to stay here through the night and listen to me till tomorrow morning,
until the morning lecture. But that is something that would make you
sick, and it would certainly be inappropriate for someone who wants to
speak about bringing health to make people sick in this way. Therefore I
must send you home for a healthy sleep following this sketchy
presentation.

A febrile illness of prolonged duration which is marked by hectic
fever, delirium, enlargement of the spleen, abdominal pain, and a
variety of systemic manifestations such as headache, diarrhea,
skin lesions, and more.